WASHINGTON — Amtrak is increasing the risk of cost overruns and schedule delays on Baltimore’s Frederick Douglass Tunnel project because it has not completed all necessary planning as the start of major construction approaches, the Amtrak Office of Inspector General says in a report released Tuesday, Oct. 1.
Major construction is slated to begin this year on the $6 billion project to replace the B&P Tunnel, which dates to 1873 and is a major bottleneck on the Northeast Corridor because of 30-mph speed restrictions and increasing repair needs. Amtrak selected the builder for the new 1.4-mile tunnel in February, and selected two major infrastructure firms to manage the project in April [see “Amtrak chooses joint AECOM/Jacobs venture …,” Trains News Wire, April 3, 2024].
Responsibility for the tunnel project was given in 2022 to Amtrak’s new Capital Delivery department, which initially assigned it to a single individual. By October 2023, the program team had grown to seven members, but five of six staff-level members told Inspector General auditors that they were overwhelmed by the workload. Amtrak officials acknowledged staffing was insufficient, in part because of funding restrictions, and said the Capital Delivery team should have been staffed before it received responsibility for the program.
The Inspector General report also says Amtrak did not establish a program management structure early enough, and as a result struggled to complete the necessary planning in scheduling, communications, document management, and risk management. Delays resulted and the risk of cost overruns and additional delays has increased as a result. And the firms managing the project must complete management planning at the same time construction preparations begin.
The report makes three recommendations: That it complete program management planning for the tunnel project; that it establish processes to ensure a project’s management structure is established early enough to produce strong oversight for the life of the project; and that it establish processes to ensure program teams have sufficient staff before projects are assigned to the Capital Delivery department. Amtrak, in its response to the report, says its management agrees with the recommendations and outlined how it acting to meet those goals.
The full report, including Amtrak’s response, is available here.
